Posts Tagged "Coal-fired Power"

For decades, steam billowing from the twin cooling towers of We Energies’ coal-fired power plant in Pleasant Prairie has been a familiar landmark for motorists driving along I-94 near in Kenosha County. Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group announced it was closing...

Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels—it produces per kilogram the least amount of energy and the greatest amount of pollution—and the world is quickly abandoning it. According to findings published by the NGOs Greenpeace and CoalSwarm, countries are using coal less...

“It’s purely economic. The plant guys tried everything they could to keep it open, but it was a money loser. In a competitive market, you’ve got to take these steps. This is a coal plant operating in a market that’s flooded with cheap natural gas.”

– Allan Koenig, a spokesman for parent company of Luminant, owner of one of Texas’ largest coal plants that is being shut down

As EPA Chief Scott Pruitt prepares to roll back the Clean Power Plan, a new analysis challenges his assumptions about “winners and losers.” The roll back makes good on Trump’s campaign promise to do away with restrictions on the coal industry. But even a drastic...

Coal-fired power plants employ more people than mines, and they’re shutting down all over the country. Cheap natural gas, the rise of renewables backed by tax credits, and subsidies for nuclear energy will likely combine to keep the trend going. Coal-fired plants...

China’s state-run news agency Xinhua reports that China has currently halted construction on new coal-fired power plants to avoid building over-capacity while simultaneously hoping to promote a cleaner energy mix. Xinhua News Agency reported that China halted...

In a dramatic U-turn, Sri Lanka’s energy regulator has approved a new long-term electricity supply plan that rejects the construction of any new coal plants between now and 2037. Coal’s fall from grace in Sri Lanka has in large part been driven by public opposition to...

“While it appears $4.5 billion is a big number, if you built a central-station generation facility like a coal unit or something like that, it would be as big or bigger, but much more risky.”

“If Duke and Southern Co. couldn’t do it, who is the Navajo Nation going to find who can do it? There’s no evidence that this can be done economically or reliably.”

– David Schlissel, director of resource planning analysis at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, reacting to statements by Navajo tribal officials that they are considering building a coal gasification plant on the site of Navajo Generating Station after it is decommissioned in 2019.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is almost entirely out of coal, according to an update on its compliance with a 2015 law that compelled it and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System to divest from coal by July 1, 2017. Coal stocks were a...

As the owners of the largest coal-burning power plant in the West map out the details of closing in the next two years, the Navajo Nation has taken its next step in its energy development by starting operations at a new 27-megawatt solar farm not far from the source...

Trying to keep aging coal and nuclear plants operating “may end up raising rather than lowering the average cost of wholesale electricity for many customers.”

– from a leaked draft of a politically motivated analysis commissioned by Energy Secretary Rick Perry that was supposed to question whether renewable energy policies or regulations have harmed grid reliability and accelerated the retirement of coal and nuclear plants, but which actually showed the opposite to be true.

“Donald Trump has used the phrase ‘clean coal’ probably a thousand times, and it doesn’t exist in the real world right now.”

At the same time Mississippi Power is still stinging from the failure of its $7.5 billion coal gasification and carbon capture project, the utility also has cut the ribbon on a $7 million solar facility at the Naval Construction Battalion Center. The project is...

Dozens of power industry executives who flew to Washington for meetings told EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt that they are against the administration simply rescinding the Clean Power Plan. Rather, they said they’d like to see EPA draft a less stringent carbon...

“None of our people are ever going to be building a coal plant again. It’s devoid of reality.”

– an unidentified utility executive reacting to meetings between power sector leaders and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt about the future of the Clean Power Plan and utilities’ desire to see some sort of carbon regulation rather than having the Trump Administration simply erase the CPP.

Despite a slight rebound in coal-fired power generation in China, analysts still project a gloomy long-term outlook for the country’s coal power sector. Cooling economic stimulus and growth in alternative and “cleaner” sources of power will combine...

Idaho Power plans to phase out most of its coal-fired generation, partly because its plants are running less often amid persistently low prices for natural gas and renewables, according to the integrated resource plan the utility filed with state regulators in early...

– From the 20-year integrated resource plan filed by Boise, Idaho-based Idaho Power with the state’s Public Utilities Commission. The utility’s plans include retiring its shares in at least three coal-burning power plants throughout the West.

Analysts project that a large segment of China’s coal-burning sector is headed for a steep decline over the coming two decades as the country continues striving to address a critical air pollution problem. Since 2013, the Chinese government has announced several...

Contrary to sky-is-falling claims by coal-dependent utilities, a new report concludes that dramatic changes in the U.S. power mix, which have forced a significant amount of coal-fired generation offline, do not pose any harm to the reliability of the nation’s...

The Mississippi Pubic Service Commission requests a “solution that eliminates ratepayer risk for unproven technology and assures no rate increase.”

– Mississippi Public Service Commission in a news release directed at Southern Co. subsidiary Mississippi Power, in which it gave the utility 45 days to abandon its beleaguered and massively over-budget seven-year, $7.5 billion effort to construct a carbon-capture-and-storage coal-burning power plant.

“Coal’s competitive advantage is fast evaporating. It cannot compete with renewables on cost, and storage and smart management of the grid have made the need for new baseload redundant. Coal is yesterday’s technology – the only thing new coal has going for it is inertia.”

– Kobad Bhavnagri, the lead author of Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s New Energy Outlook 2017 in Asia-Pacific report.

Renewable energy cost declines continue to outpace what analysts predicted even just one year ago. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s latest installment of the annual New Energy Outlook report, which models the global energy mix out to 2040, renewables...

Taiwan’s government is starting to map out plans for a power system will increase the share of renewable energy to 20 percent of total power output on the island by 2025, up from 5 percent currently. The Taiwanese government hopes to attract NT$1.8 trillion ($59...

“I’ve not spoken to a single utility that’s truly holding on to a future of more coal.”

– Brian Janous, who directs energy strategy at Microsoft, quoted in a story about the effect that Fortune 500 companies are having on the electricity sector as they commit to running their businesses on 100 percent renewable energy and pressure utilities to provide them the sources to do so.

Michigan’s largest utility company has announced that it is eliminating coal entirely from its fleet as part of a plan to reduce its carbon emissions by 80 percent. DTE said the plan would cut emissions 30 percent below 2005 level by the early 2020s, 45 percent...